History

The Rise of the Papacy

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In the previous article it was shown that the Waldenses and their rule of faith go back at least to the fourth century, and their beliefs are derived from those of the apostles. Now we will trace the history of the church and see that there came a dividing of ways and two distinct paths are evident. One path leads into the wilderness church while the other brings us to the papacy which persecuted that church (Waldenses, Albigenses, et. al.).

“The spread of Christianity during the first three centuries was rapid and extensive. The main causes that contributed to this were the translation of the Scriptures into the languages of the Roman world, the fidelity and zeal of the preachers of the Gospel, and the heroic deaths of the martyrs. It was the success of Christianity that first set limits to its progress. It had received a terrible blow, it is true, under Diocletian. This, which was the most terrible of all the early persecutions, had, in the belief of the pagans, utterly exterminated the ‘Christian superstition.’ So far from this, it had but afforded the Gospel an opportunity of giving to the world a mightier proof of its divinity.” History of Protestantism, vol. 1, 3 by J. A. Wylie.

 

Great Beginnings in History

 

Throughout history there are evidences of great beginnings followed by the great majority giving into terrible apostasy. Great leaders under the guidance of God appeared, bringing a renewal of faith and obedience among God’s professed people only to be followed by the majority going back into gross wickedness. Examples are: Noah and his warning of a coming flood and call for repentance, see Patriarchs and Prophets, 95; Moses and his leading Israel out of Egypt toward the Promised Land, see Hebrews 3; and finally Christ and His call for Israel to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, see John 6. In all three of these experiences there came a time when the great majority turned away from truth into rebellion against the God of heaven. The Lord has always had a remnant to serve Him. His purposes have, and are, moving steadily forward, although, the great majority have many times gone into such deep apostasy that it appeared that the progress to truth was halted or even reversed.

Christ established the early church with His apostles. The purity of that church was maintained as long as they lived. However the beginnings of apostasy were evident in Paul’s day. “The apostle Paul, in his second letter to the Thessalonians, foretold the great apostasy which would result in the establishment of the papal power. He declared that the day of Christ should not come, ‘except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.’ And furthermore, the apostle warns his brethren that ‘the mystery of iniquity doth already work.’ 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4, 7. Even at that early date he saw, creeping into the church, errors that would prepare the way for the development of the papacy.” The Great Controversy, 49.

 

Lamp of Truth Burns Dimly

 

“All through, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, the Lamp of Truth burned dimly in the sanctuary of Christendom. Its flame often sank low, and appeared about to expire, yet never did it wholly go out. God remembered His covenant with the light, and set bounds to the darkness. Not only had this heaven-kindled lamp its period of waxing and waning, like those luminaries that God has placed on high, but like them, too, it had its appointed circuit to accomplish. Now it was on the cities of Northern Italy that its light was seen to fall; and now its rays illumined the plains of southern France. Now it shone along the course of the Danube and the Moldau, or tinted the pale shores of England, or shed its glory upon the Scottish Hebrides. Now it was on the summits of the Alps that it was seen to burn, spreading a gracious morning on the mountain-tops, and giving promise of the sure approach of day. And then, anon, it would bury itself in the deep valleys of piedmont, and seek shelter from the furious tempests of persecution behind the great rocks and the eternal snows of the everlasting hills.” The History of Protestantism, 3.

 

Corruption Creeps In

 

Corruption made marked and rapid progress in the early church, beginning with the fourth century. The Bible was being taken away from the people and, as the true light, which was a sure guarantee of liberty, began to fade, the clergy exercised more and more authority over the church members. “Little by little, at first in stealth and silence, and then more openly as it increased in strength and gained control of the minds of men, ‘the mystery of iniquity’ carried forward its deceptive and blasphemous work. Almost imperceptibly the customs of heathenism found their way into the Christian church. The spirit of compromise and conformity was restrained for a time by the fierce persecutions which the church endured under paganism. But as persecution ceased, and Christianity entered the courts and palaces of kings, she laid aside the humble simplicity of Christ and His apostles for the pomp and pride of pagan priests and rulers; and in place of the requirements of God, she substituted human theories and traditions.” The Great Controversy, 49. Canons of councils were set up in place of the infallible Rule of Faith. The clergy took upon themselves titles of dignity and extended their authority into the realm of temporal matters. Often the minister was asked to arbitrate in disputes between members of the church.

 

Patterning After The World

 

The next step was to pattern the church organization after that of the state. Under the emperor Constantine, in the fourth century, the empire was governed by four prefects, therefore the Christian world was divided up into four dioceses over which were four patriarchs, each one governing the whole clergy in his domain. Where there had been a brotherhood now there was a hierarchy. Now there was pomp and ceremony of rank and subordination of authority and office. Now there was greatness of rank in place of the fame of learning. With the desertion of the study of the Bible came the institution of rites and ceremonies. These were multiplied to such a degree that “Augustine complained that they were ‘less tolerable than the yoke of the Jews under the law.’ ” History of Protestantism, 4. Now the Bishops of Rome began to speak with authority and demand obedience from all the churches. “This compromise between paganism and Christianity resulted in the development of the ‘man of sin’ foretold in prophecy as opposing and exalting himself above God. That gigantic system of false religion is a masterpiece of Satan’s power—a monument of his efforts to seat himself upon the throne to rule the earth according to his will.” The Great Controversy, 50. Because the spiritual condition of the Roman church was nearly extinct there was nothing to stem the tide of paganism into the church as the northern nations began to enter the empire. The fact that the high standards of true Christianity were nonexistent, the barbarians were accepted into the church just as they were. They were taught the rites and ceremonies of the apostate church and some of their pagan beliefs and practices were taken into the church. “The new tribes had changed their country, but not their superstitions.” History of Protestantism, 4.

The removal of the seat of the empire from Rome to Constantinople left a void in the city of Rome paving the way for the Bishop to take over the western seat of rule not only ecclesiastical but civil as well. By the fifth century when the western empire fell, the Bishop of Rome was substantially supreme over all bishops. By the year 606 the Roman Bishop’s pre-eminence was decreed in the imperial edict of Phocas. After the fall of the empire the Roman Bishop claimed to be the successor of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and the Vicar of Christ, and finally the vicar of the Most High God.

 

Pope Becomes Supreme

 

“In the eighth century there came a moment of supreme peril to Rome. At almost one and the same time she was menaced by two dangers, which threatened to sweep her out of existence, but which in their issue, contributed to strengthen her dominion. On the west the victorious Saracens, having crossed the Pyrenees and overrun the south of France, were watering their steeds at the Loire, and threatening to descend upon Italy and plant the Crescent in the room of the Cross. On the north, the Lombards who, under Albion, had established themselves in Central Italy two centuries before—had burst the barrier of the Apennines, and were brandishing their swords at the gates of Rome. They were on the point of replacing Catholic orthodoxy with their creed of Arianism.” Ibid. 10,11. By 774 these two tribes were vanquished and the territory of these tribes were ceded to the pope.

At this point in time the Pope has reached two of his objectives; bishop of bishops which he received in the seventh century and temporal sovereignty in the eighth. The final goal to be reached was the title king of kings, that is, to be supreme over all kings of the earth. This Pope Innocent III realized in the thirteenth century. The papacy was now enjoying its noon, but the noon of the papacy was the midnight not only for Christendom but also for the world. “Popery had become the world’s despot. Kings and emperors bowed to the decrees of the Roman pontiff. The destinies of men, both for time and for eternity, seemed under his control. For hundreds of years the doctrines of Rome had been extensively and implicitly received, its rites reverently performed, its festivals generally observed. Its clergy were honored and liberally sustained. Never since has the Roman Church attained to greater dignity, magnificence or power.

“But ‘the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world.’—J. A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, b.1, Ch. 4. The Holy Scriptures were almost unknown, not only to the people, but

to the priests. Like the Pharisees of old, the papal leaders hated the light which would reveal their sins. God’s law, the standard of righteousness, having been removed, they exercised power without limit, and practiced vice without restraint. Fraud, avarice, and profligacy prevailed. Men shrank from no crime by which they could gain wealth or position. The palaces of popes and prelates were scenes of the vilest debauchery. Some of the reigning pontiffs were guilty of crimes so revolting that secular rulers endeavored to depose these dignitaries of the church as monsters too vile to be tolerated. For centuries Europe had made no progress in learning, arts or civilization. A moral and intellectual paralysis had fallen upon Christendom.

 

People Destroyed For Lack Of Knowledge

 

“The condition of the world under the Romish power presented a fearful and striking fulfillment of the words of the prophet Hosea: ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee . . . seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.’ ‘There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.’ Hosea 4:6, 1, 2. Such were the results of banishing the word of God.” The Great Controversy, 60. Having gained all the power that it sought, the Papacy began in a greater measure the persecutions of the followers of God’s Word in an attempt to eliminate all “heretics.” Now the leaders of the papal power could devote its energies to remove all those who would not bow to their wishes. In our perusal of this history we have been made painfully aware that “Righteousness exalteth a nation,” Proverbs 14:34, and this applies to people and institutions also. Someone has said “He who does not learn the lessons of history is bound to repeat it” and the Lord does not desire us to repeat the history of the papal church. Jesus said, “All ye are brethren.” Matthew 23:8. Unless we maintain our steadfast faith and confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will fall into the same trap into which we have seen the papal church fall and repeat her history. May God help us to go forward in faith not looking back. In the next article we will delve into the activities of the papal power relating to the Waldenses and their development. The Papacy attempted to destroy this hated people and everything they stood for.

 

The Waldenses, part 1

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“Amid the gloom that settled upon the earth during the long period of papal supremacy, the light of truth could not be wholly extinguished. In every age there were witnesses for God—men who cherished faith in Christ as the only mediator between God and man, who held the Bible as the only rule of life, and who hallowed the true Sabbath. How much the world owes to these men, posterity will never know. They were branded as heretics, their motives impugned, their characters maligned, their writings suppressed, misrepresented, or mutilated. Yet they stood firm, and from age to age maintained their faith in its purity, as a sacred heritage for the generations to come.” The Great Controversy, 61.

God in His wisdom prepared a place in the wilderness for His faithful church. There they were able to maintain the light of truth when the Dark Ages covered Europe. They lived their simple lives raising their children in the truth of God’s Word, which they had in their own language, while that Word was known only by ‘scholars’ throughout the rest of the continent. From their valleys and mountain passes, after years of preparation, missionaries were sent to share the Good News with the nations around them. They were the forerunners of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.

The Roman Catholic church did all in her power to destroy the Waldenses. It tried, during many crusades and persecutions, to annihilate them. Every attempt was made to destroy the writings of their leaders and although books from other authors of that time are still preserved, the books of the people of the valleys were largely destroyed. The Latin Vulgate Bible, with its many errors, was produced to try to replace the Latin Itala Bible of the churches of the Waldenses. False reports and slanders were spread.

Years of persecution failed to wipe out this faithful church so Rome tried to destroy their history through false accounts of their origins and doctrines. The enemies of the Church in the Wilderness have tried to trace their name to Peter Waldo, an opulent merchant of Lyons, France, who began his work about 1160. However, evidence is clear that the name Waldenses comes from the Italian word for “valleys” and as they spread over France they were called Vaudois which means “inhabitants of the valleys.” Waldo was converted in his mid-life and labored to spread evangelical teachings. When he met persecutions he fled to the Waldenses. But evidence is ample that the people of the valleys were an organized body for hundreds of years before he lived among them.

The Ancient Beginnings of the Waldenses

There is abundant evidence that the history of the Waldenses dates back to the time of the apostles. It is their claim that their religion passed to them from the apostles and in fact even the writings of their enemies give credence to this. (Note that the Waldenses were called by several different names: Leonists, Vallenses, Valsenses, Vaudois and others.)

Reinerius Sasso was a well informed Inquisitor of the thirteenth century. He had once been a pastor among the Waldenses but had apostatized and become their persecutor. The book The History of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses by George Faber gives a translation of this testimony on page 272. His testimony described the Leonists (Waldenses) as being the most ‘pernicious’ of the sects of heretics for three reasons. The first reason was because of their longer continuance, for they had lasted from the time of Pope Sylvester or even from the Apostles. Secondly, because there was scarcely a land where they did not exist. And the third reason being because they lived justly before all men and blasphemed only against the Roman church and clergy while maintaining every point concerning the Deity and the articles of faith which made their doctrine appeal to the populous. He also writes that they were simple, modest people who instructed their children first in the Decalogue of the law, the Ten Commandments. (See Truth Triumphant, 254.)

Faber also shares the testimony of Pilichdorf, also of the thirteenth century, who writes that the Valdenses claimed to have existed from the time of Pope Sylvester. Claude Scyssel, the Archbishop of Turin, who lived in the neighborhood of the Waldenses in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries tells us that the Valdenses of Piedmont were followers of a person named Leo. In the time of Emperor Constantine, Leo, on account of the avarice of Pope Sylvester and the excesses of the Roman Church, seceded from that communion, and drew after him all those who entertained right sentiments concerning the Christian Religion. (See The History of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, 276.)

For nearly two hundred years following the death of the apostles, the process of separation went on between those who rejected pagan practices being brought into the church and those who accepted this baptized paganism, until there was open rupture. The Waldenses date their exclusion from communion with the papal party to the year 325 and the Council of Nicaea when Sylvester was given recognition as bishop of Rome and given grand authority by Constantine. “Such believers did not separate from the papacy, for they had never belonged to it. In fact, many times they called the Roman Catholic Church ‘the newcomer.’ ” Truth Triumphant, 220.

Scientific inquiry into the dialect of the Waldenses by M. Raynouard and discussed in his Monuments of the Roman Tongue, reveals that their language is a primitively derived language and leads to the conclusion that the “Latin Vaudois must have retired, from the lowlands of Italy to the valleys of Piedmont, in the very days of primitive Christianity and before the breakup of the Roman Empire by the persevering incursions of the Teutonic Nations.” The History of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, 285. It is from their language that the Romance languages of French and Italian were derived. They were the first to write modern literature in their vulgar tongue with their religious poems being prized today as the most perfect compositions of that period.

Vigilantius — Leader of the Waldenses

The name of Leo and the term Leonist come from Vigilantius Leo or Vigilantius the Leonist so named after his birthplace of Lyons on the Rhone and credited by Faber as the first supreme director of the Church of the Waldenses. In his book Truth Triumphant, 63, Benjamin Wilkinson says that in the time of Vigilantius (AD 364–408), “the protests against the introduction of pagan practices into primitive Christianity swelled into a revolution. Then it was that the throngs who desired to maintain the faith once delivered to the saints in northern Italy and south-western France were welded into an organized system.”

Vigilantius was a contemporary of Helvidius and Jovinian, who were also from northern Italy. Helvidius was famous for his exposure of Jerome for using corrupted Greek manuscripts in bringing out the Vulgate, the Latin Bible of the papacy. Jovinian taught and wrote against celibacy and asceticism. It is likely that “followers of Jovinianus took refuge in the Alpine valleys, and there kept alive the evangelical teaching that was to reappear with vigor in the twelfth century.” Truth Triumphant, 69, quoting Newman, A Manual of Church History, vol. 1, 376. So it was to these people of the valleys, who adhered to the teachings of scripture, that Vigilantius came to begin his public efforts to stop the pagan ceremonies. He did amighty work with wide influence.

The Church in the Wilderness

Vigilantius was able to build a strong organization among the Waldenses and evidence suggests that these apostolic Christian people had already occupied their valleys for some time. “The splendid city of Milan, in northern Italy, was the connecting link between Celtic Christianity in the West and Syrian Christianity in the East. The missionaries from the early churches in Judea and Syria securely stamped upon the region around Milan the simple apostolic religion.” Ibid., 67. This territory enjoyed a separate recognition from Rome for a thousand years as the bishoprics in northern Italy were called Italic and those of central Italy were named Roman. It is likely the Itala Bible received its name from this region. (See Truth Triumphant, 218, 219.)

“Now this district, on the eastern side of the Cottian Alps, is the precise country of the Vallenses. Hither their ancestors retired, during the persecutions of the second and third and fourth centuries: here, providentially secluded from the world, they retained the precise doctrines and practices of the Primitive Church endeared to them by suffering and exile; while the wealthy inhabitants of cities and fertile plains, corrupted by a now opulent and gorgeous and powerful Clergy, were daily sinking deeper and deeper into that apostasy which has been so graphically foretold by the great Apostle.” Faber, The History of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, 293, 294.

“The faith which for centuries was held and taught by the Waldensian Christians was in marked contrast to the false doctrines put forth from Rome. Their religious belief was founded upon the written word of God, the true system of Christianity. But those humble peasants, in their obscure retreats, shut away from the world, and bound to daily toil among their flocks and their vineyards, had not by themselves arrived at the truth in opposition to the dogmas and heresies of the apostate church. Theirs was not a faith newly received. Their religious belief was their inheritance from their fathers. They contended for the faith of the apostolic church,—‘the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.’ Jude 3. ‘The church in the wilderness,’ and not the proud hierarchy enthroned in the world’s great capital, was the true church of Christ, the guardian of the treasures of truth which God has committed to His people to be given to the world.” The Great Controversy, 64.

The Itala

“The Waldenses were among the first of the peoples of Europe to obtain a translation of the Holy Scriptures. Hundreds of years before the Reformation they possessed the Bible in manuscript in their native tongue.” Ibid., 65. It is from the city of Brescia, a city with an independent spirit like Milan and Turin, that the Itala, the first translation of the New Testament from Greek into Latin, is given to the apostolic Christians. This translation was made “three centuries before Jerome’s Vulgate.” Truth Triumphant, 242. ” They prized their Latin Bible (not the Latin Bible of Jerome), generally called the Itala, ‘because it was read publicly in all the churches of Italy, France, Spain, Africa, and Germany, where Latin was understood; and Vetus, on account of its being more ancient than any of the rest.’ To supplant this noble version, Jerome, at the request of the pope and with money furnished by him, brought out a new Latin Bible.” Truth Triumphant, 70, 71, quoting Gilly, Vigilantius and His Times, 99.

Robert Oliveton, a native of the Waldensian valleys, who translated the Vaudois Bible into French in 1535, wrote in the Preface of that work that this Bible had been a precious treasure received from the apostles and ambassadors of Christ and held by a certain poor people and friends in Christ since that time. “When the fall of the Roman Empire came because of the inrush of the Teutonic peoples, the Romaunt, that beautiful speech which for centuries bridged the transition from Latin to modern Italian, had become the mother tongue of the Waldenses. They multiplied copies of the Holy Scriptures in that language for the people. In those days the Bible was, of course, copied by hand.”

“The Bible formed the basis of their congregational worship, and the children were taught to commit large portions of it to memory. Societies of young people were formed with a view of committing the Bible to memory. Each member of these pious associations was entrusted with the duty of carefully preserving in his recollections a certain number of chapters; and when the assembly gathered round their minister, these young people could together recite all the chapters of the Book assigned by the pastor. It thus can be seen how naturally their pastors, called barbes,’ were a learned class. They were not only proficient in the knowledge of the Bible in Latin and in the vernacular, but they were also well schooled in the original Hebrew and Greek, and they taught the youth to be missionaries in the languages which then were being used by other European peoples.” Ibid., 250, 251.

Missionary Spirit

“The spirit of Christ is a missionary spirit. The very first impulse of the renewed heart is to bring others also to the Savior. Such was the spirit of the Vaudois Christians. They felt that God required more of them than merely to preserve the truth in its purity in their own churches; that a solemn responsibility rested upon them to let their light shine forth to those who were in darkness; by the mighty power of God’s Word they sought to break the bondage which Rome had imposed.” The Great Controversy, 70.

The Vaudois minister was required to receive experience in evangelism gained in a three year mission field assignment. They were sent out with an older pastor two by two. They had to conceal their mission behind a secular disguise, often that of a merchant. They were able thus to spread God’s Word throughout Europe. Often they lost their lives while on these missionary travels.

“Seemingly they took no share in the great struggle which was going on around them in all parts of Europe, but in reality they were exercising a powerful influence upon the world. Their missionaries were everywhere, proclaiming the simple truths of Christianity, and stirring the hearts of men to their very depths. In Hungary, in Bohemia, in France, in England, in Scotland, as well as in Italy, they were working with tremendous, though silent power. Lollard, who paved the way for Wycliffe in England, was a missionary from these Valleys . . . In Germany and Bohemia the Vaudois teachings heralded, if they did not hasten, the Reformation, and Huss and Jerome, Luther and Calvin, did little more than carry on the work begun by the Vaudois missionaries.” Truth Triumphant, 249, quoting McCabe, Cross and Crown, 32.

“There is an abundance of testimony to show the harmonious chain of doctrine extending from the days of the apostles down to the Reformation and later, including the beliefs held by the believers of northern Italy, the Albigenses, the Wycliffites, and the Hussites. Andre Favyn, a well-known Roman Catholic historian, who wrote in French, traces the teachings of Luther back through Vigilantius to Jovinianus, claiming that Vigilantius gave his doctrines to ‘the Albigenses, who otherwise were called the Waldenses,’ and that they in turn passed them on to the Wycliffites and the followers of Huss and Jerome in Bohemia.” Ibid., 263.

Early Waldensian Heroes

The Waldenses were often called by many different names. “Whenever from the midst of the Church in the Wilderness a new standard-bearer appeared, the papacy promptly stigmatized him and his followers as ‘a new sect.’ This produced a twofold result. First, it made these people appear as never having existed before, whereas they really belonged among the many Bible followers who from the days of the early church existed in Europe and Asia. Secondly, it apparently detached the evangelical bodies from one another, whereas they were one in essential doctrines. The different groups taken together constituted the Church in the Wilderness.” Ibid., 224, 225. These names were usually derived from the name of a leader. We have already seen this with Vigilantius Leo and the term Leonists.

Waldensian leaders included Claude of Turin of the ninth century. He battled to restore New Testament faith and practice and denounced image worship and the worship of the cross, stating that many were willing to worship the cross who would not bear it. Transubstantiation was introduced in 839 through a new book. Joannes Scotus Erigena, an Irish scholar and head of the royal school at Paris, who had authored many celebrated works, took up his pen and produced a book which successfully met this falsehood. Two centuries later his book was condemned by a papal council which recognized that it had long stirred the believers of primitive Christianity. There is a tradition which states that Scotus came from one of the schools established by Columba who was a mighty leader among the primitive Celtic Christian church in Scotland.

Berengarius was hated by the papacy and more church councils were held against him than against anyone else. He lived two hundred years after Scotus and had also analyzed the doctrine of transubstantiation and believed it to be the height of seductive errors. Apostasy had strengthened since the days of Vigilantius and Claude, and Berengarius had to oppose all they fought against and more. He was driven into exile. Thousands who rejoiced in the light he brought were called Berengarians but who were really part of the increasing numbers who refused to follow Rome. In the eleventh century those who favored a married clergy retired to a separate place called Patara and were reproachfully called Patarines. Three new names were given to the people of the valleys; namely, Berengarians, Subalpini, and Patarines.

The next century saw three outstanding evangelical heroes. The Petrobusians were the followers of Peter de Bruys who was burned for his faith. He stirred southern France with a message that transformed the characters of the masses influenced by this deep spiritual movement. “He especially emphasized a day of worship that was recognized at the time among the Celtic churches of the British Isles, among the Paulicians, and in the great Church of the East; namely, the seventh day of the fourth commandment, the weekly sacred day of Jehovah.” Ibid., 237.

Henry of Lausanne traveled, labored, prayed, and preached to raise the masses to the truth. Pope Innocent II declared the doctrines of Henry to be heresies and condemned all who held or taught them. His followers were called Henricians. They were credited along with the Petrobrusians as being the spiritual fathers of French Protestantism.

Arnold of Brescia denounced the overgrown empire of ecclesiastical tyranny and also did what the reformers failed to do by attacking the union of church and state. His words were heard in Switzerland, southern Italy, Germany, and France. He preached against transubstantiation, infant baptism, and prayers for the dead. His followers were called Arnoldists. “The Waldenses look up to Arnold as to one of the spiritual founders of their churches; and his religious and political opinions probably fostered the spirit of republican independence which throughout Switzerland and the whole Alpine district was awaiting its time.” Ibid., 243.

Sabbath Keeping

“Among the leading causes that had led to the separation of the true church from Rome was the hatred of the latter toward the Bible Sabbath.” The Great Controversy, 65.

“In his (Vigilantius’) day another controversy existed which was to rock the Christian world. Milan, center of northern Italy, as well as all the Eastern churches, was sanctifying the seventh-day Sabbath, while Rome was requiring its followers to fast on that day in an effort to discredit it.” Truth Triumphant, 75.

Bible Sabbath keeping was widespread in Europe. Rome ever sought to persecute the keepers of the fourth commandment. A. C. Flick and other authorities claim that the Celtic Church observed Saturday as their sacred day of rest, and reputable scholarship has asserted that the Welsh sanctified it as such until the twelfth century. The same day was observed by the Petrobrucians and Henricians, and Adeney, with others, attributes to the Paulicians the observance of Saturday. There are reliable historians who say that the Waldenses and the Albigenses fundamentally were Sabbath-keepers.” Ibid., 211.

Socrates and Sozomen, fourth century historians, reveal to us that the Christianity of the Greek Church was a Sabbathkeeping Christianity; and that the Christianity of the West, with the exception of the city of Rome and possibly Alexandria, was also a Sabbathkeeping Christianity. (See Ibid., 256.)

Fortunately, the records of the church council at Elvira, Spain, in 305, still exists and in Canon 26 it reveals that the Church of Spain at that time kept Saturday, the seventh day. This is significant since Spain had the good fortune to escape the influence of Rome for many centuries and many believe that the true original Waldenses were from the Spanish Pyrenees. The original word is the Latin, vallis. From it came “valleys” in English, Valdesi in Italian, Vaudois in French, and Valdenses in Spanish. Near Barcelona is a city named Sabadell, “dell of the Sabbathkeepers.” Another author in Gebbes, Miscellaneous Tracts notes that ancient Spanish Gothic Church and the ancient British Church were the same. (See Ibid., 261.)

Pope Gregory issued a bull against the community of Sabbathkeepers in Rome in 602. It stated, “Further when speaking of that Sabbath which the Jews observe, the last day of the week, which also all peasants observe.” Ibid., 259. In 865–867 the Roman and Greek churches were fighting over the newly converted Bulgarians. The issue of the Bulgarians Sabbath-keeping was raised and is seen in a reply of Pope Nicolas I to the Bulgarian king.

Allix, in his Ancient Churches of Piedmont, says, it was a doctrine of the Waldenses that the Sabbath of the Law of Moses was to be observed. David Benedict says they were called Sabbatarians for keeping the seventh day. (Ibid.) Adeney indicates that a synod of “heretics” was held in Toulouse in 1167 and that the attendants disregarded Sunday and sanctified Saturday. Gilly notes, “It has been affirmed that the orders of the Franciscans and Dominicans were instituted to silence the Waldenses.” Ibid., 260.
In 1194, Alphonso of Aragon declared the Sabbathkeeping Waldenses, Insabbati, as heretic. There is an abundance of references to “heretics” under the name of Sabbatiti, or Insabbatiti, in the records of the Inquisition. These terms refer to keeping the seventh day. Lucas Tudensis, a papal writer, shows that the Insabbatiti in Spain were numerous in 1260.

Mosheim declares that in Bohemis, Moravia, Switzerland, and Germany, prior to Luther, there were groups who believed as the Waldenses, Wycliffites and Hussites. Lamy declares that these groups after the days of Luther were Sabbathkeeping, ” ‘All the counselors and great lords of the court, who were already fallen in with the doctrines of Wittenburg, of Ausburg, Geneva, and Zurich, as Petrowitz, Jasper Cornis, Christopher Famagali, John Gerendo, head of the Sabbatarians, a people who did not keep Sunday, but Saturday, and whose disciples took the name of Genoldist. All these, and others, declared for the opinions of Blandrat.’ ” Ibid., 263.

“There is an abundance of testimony to show the harmonious chain of doctrine extending from the days of the apostles down to the Reformation and later, including the beliefs held by the believers of northern Italy, the Albigenses, the Wycliffites, and the Hussites . . . Erasmus testifies that even as late as about 1500 these Bohemians not only kept the seventh day scrupulously, but also were called Sabbatarians.” Ibid., 264.

The Continuing Reformation

The prophetic twenty-three hundred day period of Daniel came to an end. “The centuries of faithfulness seen in the history of the Church in the Wilderness were succeeded by the period of the Remnant Church who would ‘keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.’ ” Ibid., 267.

“The Waldenses witnessed for God centuries before the birth of Luther. Scattered over many lands, they planted the seeds of the Reformation that began in the time of Wycliffe, grew broad and deep in the days of Luther, and is to be carried forward to the close of time by those who also are willing to suffer all things for ‘the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.’ Revelation 1:9.” The Great Controversy, 78. ‘the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.’ Revelation 1:9.” GC, 78.

Two Very Different Reformation Characters

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As Protestantism began to fight and win spiritual battles, it became clear that, given only a few years, Protestantism’s victory would be so complete that any opposing power would fight vainly to win the battle; for a new light was shining and a new life was stirring the souls of men. Schools of learning, pure churches and free nations were rising up in different parts of Europe. It was clear that armies would never overthrow this flourishing power. A new weapon must be forged and other armies mustered to succeed where the powers of emperors and kings had failed. “It was now that the Jesuit corps was embodied. And it must be confessed that these new soldiers did more than all the armies of France and Spain to stem the tide of Protestant success, and bind victory once more to the banners of Rome.” Wylie, History of Protestantism, book 15, 377.

Ignatius Loyola

Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, the Ignatius Loyola of history, was the founder of the Order of Jesus, or the Jesuits. His birth was near the same time as that of Luther. He was born to one of the highest Spanish families in his father’s castle, in Loyola, during the time of the wars with the Moors. He was an ardent man who caught a religious fervor and longed to distinguish himself in battle. He was wounded severely in both legs while attempting a defense of a besieged garrison. His bravery won the respect of the foe who carried him to a hospital and saved him from bleeding to death.

During his confinement he first read tales of war, but when these were finished, legends of the saints were brought to his couch. As he read of martyrs, monks and hermits, and of the conquests they achieved, he panted to rival these heroes whose battles were so pure and bright compared to the battlefield which he had known. “His enthusiasm and ambition were as boundless as ever, but now they were directed into a new channel . . . The change was a sudden violent one, and drew after it vast consequences not to Ignatius only, and the men of his age, but to millions of the human race in all countries of the world, and in all the ages that have elapsed since.” Ibid., 380.

He determined to be a knight for Mary and so he took his armaments to her shrine at Montserrat and laid them before her image. He next gave up his fine clothing and put on the filthy rags of a monk and with uncombed hair and untrimmed nails he lived in a cave near Manressa for some time. He fasted for days and underwent penances and mortifications, battling evil spirits and talking to voices heard only by him, until he was found at the mouth of the cave half dead and was carried to the town of Manressa. He spent seven hours each day on his knees and scourged himself three times a day. He planned a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and his efforts were to cleanse himself in preparation for it. His revelations included a vision of the Savior, in the Host, at mass. What further evidence did he need for proof of transubstantiation? The Virgin revealed herself to him, he believed, not fewer than thirty times.

Visions Above the Bible

There is some similarity in the early experiences of Luther and Ignatius. Both had set before them a high standard of holiness and had nearly sacrificed life to achieve it, but their pursuits led in different directions. Luther turned to the Bible for relief of his sufferings while Ignatius gave himself up wholly to visions and revelations. “It required no aid from Scripture, it was based on the belief he entertained of an immediate connection between himself and the world of spirits. This would never have satisfied Luther . . . He would have the simple, written, indubitable Word of God alone.” Ibid., 381.

Feeling that he needed better qualifications to battle Protestantism, at age thirty-five, he enrolled in school and learned Latin and then transferred to another institution to study theology. He began to preach and drew followers. This excited the notice of the Inquisition and he was arrested, but freed with a warning to hold his peace when they found no heretical bias in him.

He next moved from Spain to Paris and enrolled as a student in the College of St. Barbara. His stay in Paris coincides with a period of great religious excitement. He witnessed the time of Louis de Berquin’s martyrdom.

Louis de Berquin

“Louis de Berquin was of noble birth. A brave and courtly knight, he was devoted to study, polished in manners, and of blameless morals. ‘He was,’ says a writer, ‘a great follower of the papistical constitutions, and a great hearer of masses and sermons; . . . and he crowned all his other virtues by holding Lutheranism in special abhorrence.’ But, like so many others, providentially guided to the Bible, he was amazed to find there, ‘not the doctrines of Rome, but the doctrines of Luther.’—Wylie, book 13, chap. 9. Henceforth he gave himself with entire devotion to the cause of the gospel.

“‘The most learned of the nobles of France,’ his genius and eloquence, his indomitable courage and heroic zeal, and his influence at court,—for he was a favorite with the king,— caused him to be regarded by many as one destined to be the Reformer of his country . . . They [the Romanists] thrust him into prison as a heretic, but he was set at liberty by the king. For years the struggle continued. Francis, wavering between Rome and the Reformation, alternately tolerated and restrained the fierce zeal of the monks. Berquin was three times imprisoned by the papal authorities, only to be released by the monarch, who, in admiration of his genius and his nobility of character, refused to sacrifice him to the malice of the hierarchy . . .

“So far from adopting the politic and self-serving counsel of Erasmus, he determined upon still bolder measures. He would not only stand in defense of the truth, but he would attack error. The charge of heresy which the Romanists were seeking to fasten upon him, he would rivet upon them. The most active and bitter of his opponents were the learned doctors and monks of the theological department in the great University of Paris, one of the highest ecclesiastical authorities both in the city and the nation. From the writings of these doctors, Berquin drew twelve propositions which he publicly declared to be ‘opposed to the Bible, and heretical;’ and he appealed to the king to act as judge in the controversy.

“The monarch, not loath to bring into contrast the power and acuteness of the opposing champions, and glad of an opportunity of humbling the pride of these haughty monks, bade the Romanists defend their cause by the Bible. This weapon, they well knew, would avail them little; imprisonment, torture, and the stake were arms which they better understood how to wield. Now the tables were turned, and they saw themselves about to fall into the pit into which they had hoped to plunge Berquin. In amazement they looked about them for some way of escape.

“‘Just at that time an image of the Virgin at the corner of one of the streets, was mutilated.’ There was great excitement in the city. Crowds of people flocked to the place, with expressions of mourning and indignation. The king also was deeply moved. Here was an advantage which the monks could turn to good account, and they were quick to improve it. ‘These are the fruits of the doctrines of Berquin,’ they cried. ‘All is about to be overthrown—religion, the laws, the throne itself—by this Lutheran conspiracy.’ Ibid., book 13, chap. 9.

Berquin Martyred

“Again Berquin was apprehended. The king withdrew from Paris, and the monks were thus left free to work their will. The Reformer was tried and condemned to die, and lest Francis should even yet interpose to save him, the sentence was executed on the very day it was pronounced. At noon Berquin was conducted to the place of death. An immense throng gathered to witness the event, and there were many who saw with astonishment and misgiving that the victim had been chosen from the best and bravest of the noble families of France. Amazement, indignation, scorn, and bitter hatred darkened the faces of that surging crowd; but upon one face no shadow rested. The martyr’s thoughts were far from that scene of tumult; he was conscious only of the presence of his Lord.

“The wretched tumbrel upon which he rode, the frowning faces of his persecutors, the dreadful death to which he was going—these he heeded not; He who liveth and was dead, and is alive for evermore, and hath the keys of death and of hell, was beside him. Berquin’s countenance was radiant with the light and peace of heaven. He had attired himself in goodly raiment, wearing ‘a cloak of velvet, a doublet of satin and damask, and golden hose.’ D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, book 2, chap. 16. He was about to testify to his faith in the presence of the King of kings and the witnessing universe, and no token of mourning should belie his joy.

“As the procession moved slowly through the crowded streets, the people marked with wonder the unclouded peace, and joyous triumph, of his look and bearing. ‘He is,’ they said, ‘like one who sits in a temple, and meditates on holy things.’ Wylie, book 13, chap. 9.

“At the stake, Berquin endeavored to address a few words to the people; but the monks, fearing the result, began to shout, and the soldiers to clash their arms, and their clamor drowned the martyr’s voice. Thus in 1529 the highest literary and ecclesiastical authority of cultured Paris ‘set the populace of 1793 the base example of stifling on the scaffold the sacred words of the dying.’ Ibid., book 13, chap. 9.

“Berquin was strangled, and his body was consumed in the flames. The tidings of his death caused sorrow to the friends of the Reformation throughout France. But his example was not lost. ‘We, too, are ready,’ said the witnesses for the truth, ‘to meet death cheerfully, setting our eyes on the life that is to come.’ D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, book 2, chap. 16.” The Great Controversy, 215–219.

The Society of Jesus

Ignatius Loyola began to attract devoted followers who he put through a rigid course of discipline.”Thus it was that he mortified their pride, taught them to despise wealth, schooled them to brave danger and contemn luxury, and inured them to cold, hunger, and toil; in short, he made them dead to every passion save that of the ‘Holy War’ in which they were to bear arms.” Wylie, History of Protestantism, book 15, 383.

To foster the more rapid growth of his forces, Loyola prepared his book entitled Spiritual Exercises which was a skillful imitation of the process of conviction, of alarm, of enlightenment,and of peace which the Bible calls conversion. The one who participates in the exercises during the four week course, is indeed changed, as if by a miracle. However, he does not find a Savior to lean on; he finds a rule by which he works, and works as methodically and regularly as a piece of machinery. “There are few more remarkable books in the world. It combines the self-denial and mortifications of the Brahmin with the asceticism of the anchorite, and the ecstasies of the schoolmen. It professes, like the Koran, to be a revelation.” Ibid., 384.

In August of 1534, his little army of nine followers joined him for mass at the Church of Montmartre, in Paris. They took a solemn oath to dedicate their lives and services to the Pope. Following their solemn oath, the little army proceeded to Rome. In Rome, Loyola at last found recognition as his new order was given approval by Pope Paul III. Its rules and constitution were drafted and approved and the new order was named The Company of Jesus since Ignatius claimed to have received their constitution by revelation, in the cave at Manressa, directly from Christ. His name they should bare. The date of the papal bull giving formal existence to the order was 1540. Ignatius Loyola became the first General of the order.

The Constitutions were declared a revelation from God and yet their contents were secret. Each General has power to add to them and there are many volumes. The powers of the General are vast. He acts without control of any other body, without responsibility to anyone, and without law. From his orders there is no appeal even to the Pope. His powers are absolute. Through the hierarchy of the Jesuit structure, he has a network of information gathering, regarding everything of interest to their plans, from an intimate knowledge of each member to the secrets of governments.

Enrollment in the Society of Jesus is allowed only after undergoing a severe and long-continued course of training. At the successful completion of the course and, after being closely watched, tested and noted, the member promises absolute obedience to the General.

Moral Code of the Jesuits

Loyola sent forth his men fully equipped to prosecute the war against Protestantism. He gave them the Institutions. “They were set free from every obligation, whether imposed by the natural or Divine law.” Ibid., 393. They were cut off from their country as they vowed to go wherever they were sent and to give allegiance to a sovereign higher than the monarch of any nation—their General. They were cut off from family and friends. They were cut off from wealth and property since they must give everything that they might inherit to the society. “Nay, more, the Jesuits were cut off even from the Pope. For if their General ‘held the place of the Omnipotent God,’ much more did he hold the place of ‘his Vicar’. . .

“They were a Papacy within a Papacy—a Papacy whose organization was more perfect, whose instincts were more cruel, whose workings were more mysterious, and whose dominion was more destructive than that of the old Papacy.” Ibid. 394.

They supplied themselves with their own ethical code which allowed them exemption from all human authority and from every earthly law as well as from the law of God. “The keynote of their ethical code is the famous maxim that the end sanctifies the means . . . There are no conceivable crime, villainy, and atrocity which this maxim will not justify.” Ibid.

Regicide and Murder

“The lawfulness of killing excommunicated, that is Protestant, kings, the Jesuit writers have been at great pains to maintain.” Ibid., 398. The society was first banished from France, as a society detestable and diabolical, from the evidence of papers written by the Jesuit Guignard, a Professor of Divinity, which supported the murder of Henry III and maintained that the same should be done to Henry IV.

The track of the Jesuits may be traced in every country in Europe by their bloody foot-prints. Henry III and Henry IV both fell by their dagger. The King of Portugal dies by their order. The great Prince of Orange is dispatched by their agent, shot down at the door of his own dining room. There were many attempts to murder Elizabeth and yet she escaped. Clement XIV, the Pope who tried to banish the order was poisoned. The Gunpowder Plot, the St. Bartholomew massacre, and the “Invincible Armada” is associated with the Jesuits. “What a harvest of plots, tumults, seditions, revolutions, torturings, poisonings, assassinations, regicides, and massacres has Christendom reaped. Nor can we be sure that we have yet seen the last and the greatest of their crimes.” Ibid., 399.

Destruction of the French Protestants

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“Henry IV had adjured his mother’s faith, in the hope of thereby purchasing from Rome the sure tenure of his crown and the peaceful possession of his kingdom. He fancied that he had got what he bargained for; and being, as he supposed, firmly seated on the throne, he was making prodigious efforts to lift France out of the abyss in which he had found her.” Wylie 309, 310. The so called “civil wars” which were in fact crusades by the government against the Protestants, had left the nation scarred. Henry IV had gone far to efface these frightful traces and to rid the nation of debt. He had, however, also formed political alliances with Protestant nations and was preparing to go to war against the House of Austria, a strong Catholic force. “His heretical foreign policy excited a suspicion that although he was outwardly a Roman Catholic, he was at heart a Huguenot. In a moment, a Hand was stretched forth from the darkness, and all was changed.” Ibid. The dagger of Ravaillac, the monk, brought him and his policy to an end.

His eight year old son, Louis XIII, succeeded him on the throne and Parliament immediately made his mother, Maria de Medici, regent. “Maria de Medici lacked the talent of her famous predecessor, Catherine de Medici, but she possessed all her treachery, bigotry, and baseness. She was a profound believer in witchcraft, and guided the vessel of the State by her astrological calculations. When divination failed her she had recourse to the advice of the Pope’s nuncio, of the Spanish ambassador, and of Concini, a man of obscure birth from her native city of Florence.” Ibid., When Louis XIII grew a few years older he hoped to break his bonds, so he banished his mother to Blois and hired assassins to rid him of Concini. Soon he was under the influence of a favorite, equally worthless. With the court caught up in intrigue and blood, the nobles retired to their estates and lived like independent kings and awaited the civil broils yet to come on their unhappy land.

Evil Tidings

There were many signs to warn the Huguenot of the sure approach of evil times. One was the reversal of the foreign policy of Henry IV. Louis XIII disconnected himself from his father’s allies, and joined himself to his father’ enemies by a double marriage. He took the hand of the Spanish Infanta and his sister he offered to the Prince of Austria. This renewed influence of Rome and Spain, once more in France, boded of persecution and war, and some reported that the price of this double alliance was the suppression of heresy.

The court continued to speak soft words to the Protestants but the priests wanted all of the rights gained by the Edict of Nantes to be abrogated one by one. There were still voices calling for toleration, but the clergy was ever reminding those who voiced such opinions that the king had taken an oath to exterminate heretics. Parliament was told that “all treaties sworn to the Huguenot were provisional; in other words, that it was the duty of Government always to persecute and slay Protestants, except in one case—namely, when it was not able to do it.” Ibid., 311.

War was not long in coming. First the king placed himself at the head of an army whose mission was to retake the territory of Lower Navarre and Bearn in the mountains of the Pyrenees, the hereditary kingdom of Jeanne dAlbret. This kingdom was one of the most flourishing in all of Christendom and was nine-tenths Protestant. A decree was issued giving all of the ecclesiastical property to the Romish clergy. The Jesuit Arnoux, the King’s confessor, reasoned that since this property belonged to God it could not be lawfully held by any but his priests. The Bearnese were not silent but the King’s army forced their submission to the reestablishment of the Popish religion by use of the cudgel, the dagger and a multitude of violences. This was the first of the dragonnades which were repeated afterwards in France at large.

The Protestant now divided France into eight circles and appointed a governor over each with the power to impose taxes, raise armies, and engage in battle. The majority, however, opposed hostilities and determined to fight only in self-defense. The pope and cardinals came to the King’s aid with 1,400,000 crowns to defray war expenses. In the battles that followed, the king was very successful. The Protestants lost all but two of their cautionary towns: La Rochelle and Montauban.

Cardinal Richelieu

The queen-mother introduced Cardinal Richelieu to the council-table of her son and the cardinal quickly rose to the top place. “He put down every rival, became the master of his sovereign, and governed France as he pleased.” Ibid., 316. He was a man of great schemes with genius and activity to carry them out. He resolved to make the throne a greater power in France and to break the power of the nobles. He also sought to reduce the Austrian power and was dear to the anger and alarm his policy awakened in Rome. But he felt that before he could accomplish any of these projects he must first subdue the Huguenot, for their political rights were an obstacle in his path.

He determined to strike a fatal blow at La Rochelle. He saw this city as a symbol of the political and religious power of the Huguenot. Richelieu raised vast land and naval armaments and besieged the city in 1627. He raised a dike to close the channel to the sea and prevent help from that route. Attempts by the Duke of Rohan to raise an army of Huguenot to come to the aid of their brethren in La Rochelle fell on deaf ears. After fifteen months of siege, with two-thirds of the population dead from starvation and battle, the city surrendered. The Huguenot fell as a political power in France. All ancient privileges were annulled. Cardinal Richelieu put off his armaments, washed his hands and sang the first mass to reestablish the Roman Catholic religion in the city.

The Roman Catholic nobles had assisted Richelieu in putting down the Huguenot. Now they found that they had cleared the way for their own suppression. “It was the design of God to humble one class of his enemies by the instrumentality of another, and so Richielieu prospered in all he undertook. He weakened the emperor; he mightily raised the prestige of the French arms, and he made the throne the one power in the kingdom.” Ibid., 320 Having succeeded in all of his goals and having triumphed over all attempts to end his life by assassination, he held power until his death. “The cardinal first, and six months after, the king, were both stricken, in the mid-time of their days and in the height of their career. They returned to their dust, and that day their thoughts perished.” Ibid.

“We have now arrived at the end of the religious wars. What has France gained by her vast expenditure of blood and treasure? Peace? No; despotism. The close of the reign of Louis XIII shows us the nobles and the mob crushed in their turn, and the throne rising in autocratic supremacy above all rights and classes. One class, however, is exempted from the general serfdom. The Church shares the triumph of the throne. The hand of a priest has been laid upon the helm of the State, and the king and the clergy together sway the destinies of a prostrate people. This ill-omened alliance is destined to continue—for, though one cardinal minister is dead, another is about to take his place—and the tyranny which has grown out of it is destined to go on, adding year by year to its own prerogatives and the people’s burdens, until its existence and exactions shall terminate together by the arrival of the Revolution, which will mingle all four—the throne, the priesthood, the aristocracy, and the commonality—in one common ruin.” Ibid.

Cardinal Mazarin

Louis XIV, a child of four and a half years, is now king. His mother, Anne of Austria is sole regent and she calls upon Richelieu’s disciple Cardinal Mazarin to aid as prime minister. His work was to keep all that Richelieu had won and this was no easy matter. “Extravagance created debts; debts necessitated new taxes; the taxes were felt to be grievous burdens by the people. First murmurs were heard; then, finally, insurrection broke out.” Ibid., 321. In this War of the Fronde, the nobles and the mob were not successful in throwing off the yoke, however, the troubles of the country were a shield for a time over the small remnant of Protestantism which had been spared in France.

Shut out from political activity, the Protestants transferred their talents and activity to the pursuits of agriculture, of trade, and of manufactures where they excelled. In agriculture the crops of the Huguenot seemed to produce seven fold, in manufacture their craft and skill made them superior, in trade their honesty, especially in contrast to the doubtful integrity of the Catholics, placed almost all foreign trade in their hands. Protestants took a foremost place among the learned physicians, the great lawyers, and the illustrious orators of France. As a religious body, they were under constant threat of extermination and so their courage and zeal for building up their churches was weak. They were weak. Despite spiritual decay in French Protestantism as a whole, there were still individual Protestants whose names and labors drew the attention of Europe and French Protestant literature blossomed in the stormy seventeenth century.

Mazarin succeeded in war, not only against his own citizens but also in war against Spain and Austria, humbling both and transferring to France their political and military preponderance. It is interesting to note “that two princes of the Roman Catholic Church were employed in weakening a power which was the main support of that Church, and in paving the way for that great Revolution which was to reverse the position of all the kingdoms of Europe, striping the Papal nations of their power, and lifting up the Protestant kingdoms to supremacy.” Ibid., 327. Mazarin prospered in his plans but like Richelieu he died before he could enjoy the fruits of his anxious labors.

Louis XIV

When the death of Mazarin, Louis XIV, who had been on the throne for eighteen years, now began to govern. He told his ministers that they were to give council only and he would reign as he pleased. Seldom has a monarch had more power. His own well-known words express it— “The State, it is I.” He was the sole master of the rights, liberties, and consciences of his subjects. His reign would be either a source of blessing or of far-reaching misery.

“The error of Louis XIV, as a man, was his love of pleasure. He lived in open and unrestrained licentiousness. This laid him at the feet of his confessor, and sank him into a viler vassalage than that of the meanest vassal in all his dominions. The ‘Great’ Louis, the master of a mighty kingdom, whose will was law to the millions who called him their sovereign, trembled before a man with a shaven crown. From the feet of his confessor he went straight to the commission of new sins; from these he came back to the priest, who was ready with fresh penances, which, alas! Were but sins in a more hideous form. A more miserable and dreadful life there never was. Guilt was piled upon guilt, remorse upon remorse, till at length life was passed, and the great reckoning was in view.” Ibid., 327.

Since the penances imposed by the King’s confessor often involved treachery against the Protestants, conditions of the Huguenot became worse from the moment Mazarin breathed his last and Louis XIV began to reign. Throughout his reign his policy toward the Protestants was to work toward their extinction and to revoke the Edict of Nantes. His first act in this line was to send out commissioners two by two—one Protestant and one Catholic—into all of the provinces to hear grievances and settle quarrels. In every case they found for the Catholics and against the Protestants. Next came a decree against “Relapsed Heretics.” This enabled the state to seize and bring to tribunals any person who entered a Protestant church if they had ever at any time in their life had any relationship with the Catholic church or given any suspicion of having leanings toward Catholicism. Other ordinances authorized a priest and a magistrate to visit every dying person and urge them to join Catholicism on their death bed. Children could adjure Protestantism at the age of seven and their parents were required to pay for their maintenance under a Catholic roof. Spies haunted Protestant sermons and any minister who spoke a word against the Virgin or any saint was indicted for blasphemy. Protestants were excluded from all public office and from the practice of law or medicine and in fact from all of the professions. They were forbidden to sing psalms nor could they bury their dead except before dawn and at the edge of night and not more than ten mourners could attend a burial. But the priests declared that more must be done to cause this “formidable monster of heresy to expire completely.” Under this tyranny Protestants began to flee from their native land.

Persecutions heightened. New ordinances and arrests struck the Protestants. Protestants could only print books with permission; worship had to be suspended if a bishop was visiting; their domestic privacy was invaded and parental rights were violated; their temples were demolished. “But perhaps the most extraordinary means employed was the creation of a fund for the purchase of conscience.” Pellison, a former Calvinist, was in charge of this office which had clerks and books and “daily published lists of articles purchased, these articles being the bodies and souls of men…The daily lists of adjurations amounted to many hundreds; but those who closely examined the names said that the majority were knaves, or persons who, finding conversion profitable, thought it not enough to be once, but a dozen times converted.” Ibid., 329

“Louis XIV was now verging on old age, but his bigotry grew with his years…No fitter tool than Louis XIV could the Jesuits have found. His Spanish mother had educated him not to hesitate at scruples, but to go forward without compunction to the perpetration of enormous crimes.” He now fell under the influence of Madame de Maintenon the granddaughter of the Protestant historian Agrippa d’Aubigne and a former Calvinist. The king secretly married her after his queen died and she and Father la Chaise, his confessor, became counselors and partners in deeds of tyranny and blood that brought further darkness and horror over the life of the king. “It was deemed bad economy, perhaps, to do with money what could be done by the sword. Accordingly the dragonnades were now set on foot.” A regiment of cavalry was sent into each province and the majority of the soldiers were quartered in Protestant homes where they were given permission to carry out any type of horror short of killing the family. “The details must be suppressed; they are too horrible to read…Thousands rose to flee from a land where nothing awaited them but misery. The court attempted to arrest the fugitives by threatening them with the galleys for life. The exodus continued despite this terrible law.” Ibid., 329

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

“Everywhere there was a Reign of Terror; and the populace, entirely in the hands of ruffians, who, if they forbore to kill, did so that they might practice excruciating and often unnamable tortures upon their victims, now came in crowds to the priests to adjure. ‘Not a post arrives,’ wrote Madame deMaintenon, in September, 1685, ‘without bringing tidings that fill him [the king] with joy; the conversions take place every day by the thousands.’ Twenty thousand adjured in Bearn, sixty thousand in the two dioceses of Nimes and Montpelier: and while this horrible persecution went on the Edict of Nantes was still law…

“The king, on the 18th of October, 1685, signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Revocation swept away all rights and liberties which Henry IV and Louis XIII had solemnly guaranteed to the Protestants.” Ibid., 332 The execution of the edict began immediately.

“The Protestants amounted to between one and two million; their factories and workshops were to be found in nearly all parts of France; their commerce and merchandise upheld its great cities, their energy and enterprise were the life of the nation; and to be all at once flung beyond the pale of law, beyond the pale of humanity! They were stupefied. Their churches were laid in ruins and everywhere “booted apostles” scoured the land carrying on the work of “converting” as Louis XIV reasoned, “for had not the Saviour said, ‘Compel them to come in?’ ” Ibid., 333

One clause of the Revocation demanded that all Protestant pastors leave the country while another made it a death penalty for a layman to flee. “The frontiers were jealously guarded; sentinels were placed at all the great outlets of the kingdom; numerous spies kept watch at the seaports; officers patrolled the shore; and ships of war hovered off the coast to prevent escape.” Ibid., 334. But despite all of these efforts it is estimated that upwards of one half a million Protestants emigrated. Nearly every country in Europe became their refuge with England, Holland and Germany receiving the largest numbers. “The Duke of Saint Simon says in his Memoirs that all branches of trade were ruined, and that a quarter of the kingdom was perceptibly depopulated.” Ibid., 335. “In short, not an art was cultivated, not a trade was carried on in France which did not suffer from this blow; not a province was there where the blight it had inflicted was not to be seen in villages half-depopulated, in habitations deserted, in fields lying unploughed, and in gardens and vineyards overgrown with weeds and abandoned to desolation.” Ibid., 336. The fleets of foreign ships all but disappeared as the trade of the Protestants took this foreign trade and wealth to the lands where they fled.

By this act Louis XIV drove away the genius and learning, the art and glory of his realm, and scattered it among the nations of Europe. He did more to weaken France than all that Richelieu and Mazarin had done to strengthen her and in this his folly is as conspicuous and as stupendous as his wickedness. It was not alone in France that the effect of the Revolution worked against those who had invoked it. “It was the treachery and cruelty of the Revocation that, above most things, aroused the Protestant spirit of Europe, and brought about that great Revolution which, three short years afterwards, placed William of Orange on the throne of Great Britain.” Ibid., 338.

The Prisons and the Galleys

The sincerity of the conversions of the “New Catholics” was seriously doubted by the Jesuits even though they loudly boasted publicly of their successes. So, new ordinances were enjoined requiring frequent examination of those who have adjured their Protestantism. There proved to be an insufficient number of priests to perform this task, so Capuchins were called upon to instruct the new converts. These men proved to be so ignorant that a mere youth could silence them. “To gorss ignorance they not infrequently added a debauched life, and in the case of Protestants of riper years, their approach awakened only disgust, and their teaching had no other effect on those to whom they were given, than to deepen their aversion to a Church which employed them a her ministers.” Ibid., 339

“When the first stunning shock of the edict had spent itself, there came a recoil. The more closely ‘the new converts’ viewed the Church into which they had been driven, the stronger became their dislike of it. Shame and remorse for their apostasy began to burn within them.” Ibid. They began to desire their old religion again and so they withdrew from the cities in numbers and began to seek the mountain wildernesses and forests that they might practice their worship in the caves and on the tops of mountains. “There they promised one another to live and die in the Reformed faith.” Ibid.

When the king and his counselors learned of this, they were enraged. ” ‘Afterwards,’ says Quick, ‘they fell upon the persons of the Protestants, and there was no wickedness, though ever so horrid, which they did not put in practice, that thy might enforce them to change their religion…In Paris there was a desire to conceal from Louis the formidable proportions of the actual horrors. But in other parts of France no check was put upon the murderous passions, and the brutal lusts, and the plundering greed of the soldiery.” Ibid., 340. The prisons were filled with those who tried to escape and when there was not room to contain them they were shipped to Canada. If they survived the horrors of the trip they were sold into a slavery so cruel that in most cases they soon perished. “Those who were thus dragged from the pleasant fields of France, and put under the lash of barbarous taskmasters in a foreign land, were not the refuse of French society; on the contrary, they were the flower of the nation.” Ibid., 341. Others were sent into the galleys to suffer indescribable tortures. Hundreds suffered this fate. “It was not till 1775, in the beginning of Louis XVI’s reign, that the galleys released their two last Protestant prisoners.” Ibid., 343.

The Church in the Desert

The hidden churches were ministered to by men who had not received their training in any school or college but who had the anointing of the Holy Spirit. “More arrests, more dragoons, more sentences to the galleys, more scaffolds; such were the means by which they sought to crush the ‘Church of the Desert.’ ” When companies were found they were slaughtered. Exact lists of the massacred in different places included encounters where 300-400 old men, women and children were left dead upon the spot. “But no violence could stop these field-preachings. They grew ever larger in numbers, and ever more frequent in time, till at last, we are assured, it was nothing uncommon, in traversing the mountain-side or forest where they had met, to find, at every four paces, dead bodies dotting the sward, and corpses hanging suspended from the trees.” Ibid., 345. Years of persecution could not extinguish them. They continued though in chains. “At last, amid the clouds of sevenfold blackness, and the thunderings and lightenings of a righteous wrath, came the great Revolution, which with one strike of awful justice rent the fetters of the French Protestants, and smote into the dust the throne which had so long oppressed them.” Ibid., 347.

The French Reformation

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Francis I had begun a course of persecution which he found he was not capable of controlling or stopping. As he laid on his death bed, at age fifty-two the memory of many dreadful deeds tormented him. The priests were unable to calm his fears as he drew near the end of his probation. He knew the judgement awaited him.

The most troubling incident had taken place just two years before in Provence. Anciently this area had been a desert. Its poor soil, boulders, swamps, and extreme weather conditions caused it to be farmed very little. But the Vaudois of the high valleys of the Piedmontese Alps, saw possibilities in the area. They crossed the mountain, cleared the boulders, and they planted wheat and vineyards. Now this former desert was lush with orchards, gardens, and golden fields of grain.

As the Reformation was moving forward in Europe, these Vaudois sent representatives to inquire into the beliefs of the Reformation, and discovered that they were brothers in the faith. When the priests in this area heard about this they determined to stamp out the first signs of Lutheranism in their territories. Francis offered pardon if the accused would give up their religion. They declined and horror followed. In a night, twenty-two villages were burned or sacked, and all their inhabitants murdered with horrible cruelty. The area was destroyed and became uncultivated and uninhabited. These memories followed Francis I to his death bed.

Francis I was replaced on the throne by his son Henry II who was a feeble king. During his rule four factions arose who fought to control the king, and thus the kingdom. These factions all hated Protestantism and these years were marked with great calamity for France. Henry was married to Catherine de Medici, the niece of a former Pope. Her influence was to be greater for evil than that of her husband or her sons who followed on the throne. Her husband’s love of pleasure was well known and all the nation knew of his mistress, Diana of Poictiers, who controlled access to the king.

The King and the Tailor

Though he was a poor husband, Henry determined to celebrate Catherine’s coronation as queen with great display, and he felt that the burning of a few Huguenots would add to the splendor of the event. It was decided that to give additional pleasure to his court, a simple tailor would be examined by a Catholic scholar, who would show the confusion of the poor man before the court. But the tailor proved more than a match for the scholar and it was the court which was embarrassed. Henry’s mistress came to the defense of the churchman; the tailor rebuked her sin as well as her ignorance. For punishment he was to burn as a coronation torch and the king had chairs set on a porch overlooking the sight, where he and Diana of Poictiers could personally watch the event. As the tailor burned he never ceased to look the king in the eye as his limbs burned and fell, until death relieved his suffering. The king suffered from the memory for days and determined to never watch another heretic burn. Since Diana was given many of the estates of the condemned, her insatiable avarice prompted new executions almost daily.

The two remaining factions consisted of Montmorency, the High Constable of France, and the Guises. The Lords of Guise, from the house of Lorraine, included Francis, a man of war, and Charles, his brother, who chose the priesthood, becoming the Cardinal of Lorraine. One historian calls Charles the “cowardliest of all men.” Both brothers were known for their cruelty and ambition, and the arms of one executed the craft plotted by the other. “‘But for the Guises,’ says Mezeray, ‘the new religion would perhaps have become dominant in France.’” Wylie’s History of Protestantism, book 17, 517. The jealousies between the Constable and the Guises brought calamity on the nation and nearly ruined France. The blame for these calamities was thrown on the Protestants. The calamity that befell the nation only worked as a cover for evangelization.

Church Growth

It was during this time of persecution that the various churches of Protestantism, which consisted of groups of believers meeting secretly in homes, began their work of electing pastors from their number, as well as other officers. The first church to elect a pastor was in Paris. They chose the son of the king’s attorney, who hated Protestantism. This necessitated the son’s flight from his father’s home and the forfeiture of his wealth. “Death the growing rigour of the persecution, the shameful slanders which were propagated against the reformed, and the hideous deaths inflicted on persons of all ages and both sexes, the numbers of the Protestants and their courage daily increased. It was now seen that scarcely was there a class of French society which did not furnish converts to the Gospel. Mezeray says that there was no town, no province, no trade in the kingdom wherein the new opinions had not taken root.” Ibid., 522

The king’s alarm was great, and the friends of Rome sought in every way to crush the growing church. The king’s court and the ecclesiastical judges reproached one another for not showing greater zeal in executing the edicts against heresy. Finally, the Cardinal of Lorraine stripped the Parliament and the civil judges of the right to hear cases of heresy, leaving them only to the task of carrying out the orders of the bishops. He attempted to set up an Inquisition similar to that of Spain, but the Parliament refused their consent. All around the king were voices urging him to uproot heresy before it succeeded in overthrowing his throne, uprooting his family, and bringing the nation to destruction. Henry II and Charles V of Spain joined in a secret treaty, binding both monarchs to combine their powers to eliminate heresy in their dominions.

Heresy in the Gena

Quarterly, groups of senators met to discuss evidences of corruption in the state. The king was urged to present himself unannounced at one of these assemblies and see for himself if heresy did not exist among his senators. This advice he followed in June of 1559. He ascended a throne and gave a speech on religion. He expounded on his efforts for peace in Christendom, and announced his intention to devote himself to healing the wounds of the Christian world. Then he called the senators to go on with their work as he observed.

Many senators did not fail, even under this intimidation, to speak out for liberty and to declare the injustice of the burnings. One man, Annas du Bourg, spoke pointedly of the need to punish wicked crimes which went unpunished, even as new punishments were invented daily for those who were guilty of no crime. But others recalled the ancient slaughter of the Waldenses and the Albigensian heretics, and called for these time honored methods to again be used. When their votes were taken and recorded the king took note of the register “and to show that under a despot no one could honestly differ from the royal opinion and be held guiltless, he ordered the Constable Montmorency to arrest Du Bourg. He was instantly seized and carried to the Bastile.” Ibid., 524. Other senators were arrested the next day.

“The king’s resolution was to execute all the senators who had opposed him, and to exterminate Lutheranism everywhere throughout France. He would begin with Du Bourg, who, shut up in an iron cage in the Bastile, waited his doom. But before the day of Du Bourg’s execution arrived, Henry himself had gone to his account.” Ibid. Fourteen days after his visit to the Parliament, while celebrating the engagement of his daughter to the mightiest prince of the time, Philip II of Spain, the king was in a jousting match with the Constable and was mortally wounded. He died a few days later at forty-one.

Henry’s eldest son next took the throne under the title of Francis II. He was sixteen and without principles or morals. He was married to Mary Stuart, the heir to the Scottish throne and a niece of the Guises. Catherine de Medici was not yet in her full power, and in effect the Guises ruled France since, through their niece, they had easy access to the ear of the young boy king. One of Francis’s first acts was to try and condemn Du Bourg. Though imprisoned and fed only bread and water he continually sang psalms, and in giving up his life for the truth greatly aided the cause of Protestantism.

Organization of the Church

These days of persecution for the church were also days of growth. Though they had few ordained ministers to serve them, they would meet together to read the Word and to pray. These places were carefully selected. It might be a barn, cave, forest or home. “Assemble where they might, they knew that there was One ever in the midst of them, and where he was, there was the church.” Ibid., 525. The Swiss printing presses kept colporteurs supplied with Bibles and religious books in abundance. They chose to hide their mission, and following the example of the ancient Vaudois, they went as traveling merchants hiding their books within their baskets of wares. In this way they succeeded in placing Bibles in the homes of nobles and peasants. The number of believers multiplied. Even in Provence, just 15 years after the terrible slaughter, no less than sixty churches existed.

It was determined that a Synod should be held in Paris in May of 1559. There were great difficulties sending word of the planned meeting to the churches, and more difficulty finding a place of concealment, but eleven representatives met. They studied the New Testament model of church organization and sought to follow its example. They set out forty articles in a Confession of Faith, and an additional forty articles in a Code of Discipline which outlined their organizational framework. They determined how their leaders were to be chosen and outlined their responsibilities. “Their power was not legislative but administrative, and their rule was not lordly but ministerial; they were the fellow-servants of those among whom, their functions were discharged.” Ibid., 531.

Among the lay-leaders of the French Protestants, three names stand out. The prince of Conde was a noble who joined the cause, but did not bring to it that entire devotion or holy life necessary to be of true service. As with all of the house of Bourbon, to which he belonged, it might be said that they did the cause more damage than good. His brother was married to a truly great woman, Jeanne d’Albret, the daughter of Margaret of Valois. As the Queen of Navarre she ruled her small kingdom, wisely keeping her husband from the task. She studied law and produced a set of laws far in advance of her times. She encouraged industry, and, in a short time, her kingdom attracted universal attention for its order and prosperity. She was a true Protestant fostering liberty of conscience. The third name of renown is that of Admiral Coligny, perhaps the greatest layman of the French Reformation.

Persecutions

The Guises had not been successful in setting up an Inquistion after the Spanish order, but they succeeded in establishing courts styled Chambres Ardentes whose task it was to send all heretics to the flames. With their three judges or inquisitors, and a body of spies or familiars, they were quite effective. With prizes of the victim’s goods offered to informant, it was an opportunity to avenge grudges, and many suffered who had little acquaintance with the gospel. The courts and scaffolds were constantly busy, with one day’s victims being dispatched to make room for the next. It was a reign of terror. The little children of the heretics were left to wander the streets, crying piteously for bread, but no one would help. To aide a victim or to complain of the injustice, was to be drawn into the same punishment. The Parliament made no attempt to intervene. The citizens of the land were made to believe that the persecuted were atheists and monsters and that they were cleansing France in their extermination. Their properties were confiscated, but the day of reckoning came in 1789 when the wealth taken by confiscation and injustice went in the same manner.

Conspiracy of Ambiose

The nation was nearing civil war. Only the most bigoted Roman Catholics and the rabble, who were the pliant tools of the oppressor, were safe from this reign of terror. Both Catholics and Protestants began to promote the idea of forcibly removing the brothers of Lorraine. Calvin counseled against it, forseeing “that the Reformation might lose, even if victorious, by becoming in France a military and political power.” Ibid., 542. Admiral de Coligny stood aloof from the plan. The Prince of Conde was chosen to lead in the attempt. They planned first to try making just demands for freedom of worship, and the removal of the Guises, but anticipating the rejection of these requests they planned to remove the Guises by force and place the Prince of Conde on the throne. Their plans, which had been kept secret by thousands, were leaked by a timorous Protestant attorney in Paris on the eve of the event. The plot ended with the army and its brave leader killed. The Guises now took revenge. Scaffolds were set up around the castle, and the royal court, including Mary Stuart, dressed in party fashion, watched as the axes fell and blood ran rushing into the Loire. Twelve hundred persons died.

In the face of all this violence, the Reformation continued to grow until whole towns were Protestant. These now grew bold to worship openly. This stung the Guises to madness and they became more violent. They would surprise the worshipers and hang their leaders. The Guises next thought to hang the Prince of Conde, and cause all of France to adjure Protestantism in a single day, by demanding each individual subscribe to an adjuration oath or be immediately executed. The cardinal called this his “Huguenot rattrap.” As they prepared to get the king’s signature on their orders and all appeared lost for Protestantism, the young king sickened and died at age seventeen after a reign of only a few months. In the scramble for power that followed all were too busy to bury the king, and after some days his funeral car was followed by one blind bishop and two domestics to his grave.

King Charles

Mary Stuart returned to Scotland, taking with her a deeply cherished hatred of the Reformation. Catherine de Medici’s day had at last arrived as her nine year old son Charles IX took the throne. By right the Prince of Conde should have held the Regency of France during Charles’ minority, but the queen mother boldly put him aside and took the role herself. The Prince was freed from prison.

There followed two important meetings where justice had a hearing. In a meeting of the States-General, all the lay speakers “united as one man in arraigning the Roman Church as pre-eminently the source of many evils which afflicted France.” Ibid., 547. They called for reform in doctrine and in their luxuriant living of the priests and called on them to instruct their flocks and reclaim those who had gone astray with truth and reason, not with persecutions. The Catholic speaker who followed called on the young king to root out heresy by violence. Coligny rose and demanded an apology. When non would support him, the speaker was forced to apologize, and Catherine, sensing the mood of the nation, decided to remain on good terms with both parties. She meant to hold a balance between the two parties by making each weaken the other and thus strengthen herself.

The favors she granted the Protestants prompted the formation of the Triumvirate, a holy league for the defense of the Catholic religion and their estates. Its members were the Duke of Guise, Constable Montmorency and Marshal St. Andre. This league left its mark on history.

The second hearing for justice and truth was a meeting between the two opinions, with opportunity given the Protestants to have their case heard. The Colloquy was held in September 1561. First were heard voices for toleration of the Protestants, since they were also Christians, and calls for reforms based on the Bible. The Papal members angrily denounced these ideas. Here Beza, the learned associate of Calvin, was allowed entrance and opportunity to speak. The distinction in dress, manners, and speech between the two parties made a favorable impression and Protestantism was seen in a different light. Beza on bended knee presented a copy of the Confession of the French Protestant Church to the king. The Romish party tried by speeches, tricks, and loud clamors to subdue the Protestants and convince them to deny their faith, but “it was clear that no fair discussion, and no honest adjustment of the controversy on the basis of truth, had from the first been intended.” Ibid., 553. Many began to question if Romanism was a corruption of the Gospel. The Reformation stood higher in the public estimation, as it was seen to be different from the picture that the priest had painted of it.

Protestantism continued to grow, and with this growth were seen changes in the lives of its adherents. Growth was aided by an edict known as the Edict of January, granted in 1562, which gave a very limited right to exercise religion freely outside the cities, in open places, unarmed. A numbering of the churches by Beza, at the request of Catherine, counted upwards of 2,150 congregations some as large as 4,000 to 8,000 members. As many as 40,000 were known to have gathered outside the capital to hear sermons. It is estimated that one fourth of the flower of the population in respect of rank, intelligence, and wealth joined the Reformed faith.

Massacre at Vassy and Civil War

The Pope, Philip II of Spain, and the Triumvirate of Paris studied how to roll back the tide of Protestantism, for it was feared that France was soon to be lost to Lutheranism. Rome dreaded the loss of glory, revenues, and political strength that would result. They first succeeded in convincing the King of Navarre, husband of Jeanne d’Albret to join them with false promises. Antoine de Bourbon was a handy prize. Pulpits thundering against the Edict of January, with priests filling the superstitious ears of their congregations with tales and supplying them with arms, turning their churches into arsenals. When the time was right, the Duke of Guise and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, were called upon to cut the knot of the edict with the sword.

They chose to march on the little town of Vassy where about 1200 Hugenots met weekly in a barn. On the first of March the barn was surrounded and a brutal scene followed as the captive worshippers attempted in vain to escape. This was the first blow in the civil wars. Other massacres followed and there was no national action taken against them. “The Popish mob was supplied with arms and formed into regiments. The churches served as club-houses.’ Ibid., 561. On June 8th Parliament passed a law allowing any man to kill a Protestant where he found him, and on the 18th of August Parliament again spoke declaring all gentlemen of the ‘new religion’ traitors to God and king. There was now open war.

Huguenot Wars

The next eight years saw three civil wars. The Huguenot reluctantly took up arms, choosing the Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny as their leaders. Repeatedly they had the advantage and might have gained control of the capital if they had acted decisively. More than once they were drawn into conferences of peace by Catherine de Medici, which always ended as her forces grew powerful enough to fight again. Even after winning victories, the Prince of Conde gave such concessions to Catherine that even his enemies were astounded.

Many lives were lost in these wars and all the members of the Triumvirate were finally struck down. There were times when the Huguenot might have achieved their freedom if they had had the courage to make their demands. Peace after peace was declared, but blood continued to flow and one war followed another. There was no justice in the land. Another outcome of the wars was that hatred between the two sides grew, making conversions to Protestantism almost cease. “Piety decayed on the battlefield, and the evangelism began to retrograde. ‘Before the war,’ says Felice, ‘proselytism was conducted on a large scale, and embraced whole cities and provinces; peace and freedom allowed of this; afterwards, proselytes were few in number, and obtained with difficulty. How many corpses were heaped up as barriers between the two communions; how many bitter enmities, and cruel remembrances, watched around the two camps to forbid approach.’” Ibid., 587.

While the wars continued Catherine and Charles IX began to council with Philip of Spain on a different kind of battle of destroy Protestantism. The plan involved several years of planning and dreadful deceits. The result of their efforts would bring them all infamy.

The End

Historial Gem – Fearful Rejection

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Paul was accused by Ananias of being the ringleader of the sect known as the Nazarenes. He was imprisoned for being a troublemaker who constantly incited the Jews to riots.

“Near the close of the two years, these dissensions led to a fierce combat in the market-place, resulting in the defeat of the Greeks. Felix, who sided with the Gentile faction, came with his troops and ordered the Jews to disperse. The command was not instantly obeyed by the victorious party, and he ordered his soldiers to fall upon them. Glad of an opportunity to indulge their hatred of the Jews, they executed the order in the most merciless manner, and many were put to death. As if this were not enough, Felix, whose animosity toward the Jews had increased every year, now gave his soldiers liberty to rob the houses of the wealthy.

“These daring acts of injustice and cruelty could not pass unnoticed. The Jews made a formal complaint against Felix, and he was summoned to Rome to answer their charges. He well knew that his course of extortion and oppression had given them abundant ground for complaint, but he still hoped to conciliate them. Hence, though he had a sincere respect for Paul, he decided to gratify their malice by leaving him a prisoner. But all his efforts were in vain; though he escaped banishment or death, he was removed from office, and deprived of the greater part of his ill-gotten wealth. Drusilla, the partner of his guilt, afterward perished, with their only son, in the eruption of Vesuvius. His own days were ended in disgrace and obscurity.” Sketches from the Life of Paul, 245, 246.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by an avalanche of boiling mud and lava. Pompeii was buried under 20–40 feet of mud, and Herculaneum was under 60–75 feet.

In the summertime of 79 A.D., the young 18-year-old student, Gaius Plinius (Pliny the Younger) witnessed one of the most unbelievable catastrophes in the history of the world. He was staying with his mother and his uncle (Pliny the Elder) at a villa in the city of Misenum, which is located on the Bay of Naples, about 20 miles from Mount Vesuvius. While there he witnessed the eruption that completely buried the cities. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, died that day, but Gaius survived and wrote a startling account to the Roman historian Tacitus of what he saw in two long letters. Here are some translated excerpts of what he wrote: “On August 24, about one in the afternoon, my mother drew my uncle’s attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. It was not clear from a distance as to which mountain the cloud was rising from, although it was afterward known to be Vesuvius. …

“His uncle (Pliny the Elder) being commander of the naval fleet at Misenum, apparently realized, according to Gaius’s account, that Vesuvius was erupting and decided to take some ships across the bay to rescue whoever he could. It was impossible to come too close to land because of the hot, thick ashes and pumice (large chunks of lava), and so they headed for Stabiae, a city three miles south of Pompeii, and he came to the home of a friend, Pomponianus, who could not leave because of the opposing wind. So they waited. They watched Vesuvius, of which it is said that there was:

“ ‘broad streets of fire and leaping flames blazed at many points, their bright glow emphasized [sic] by the darkness of night.’

“Pliny the Elder was completely helpless to do anything and his hope of a rescue mission was impossible and he and the men with him were in great danger. …

“ ‘Only the shrill cries of women, the wailing of children, and the shouting of men. Some were calling to their parents, others to their children, others to their wives. … Many lifted up their hands to the gods, but most were convinced that there were now no gods at all and that this night was the end of the world. Finally the darkness lightened, and then like smoke or cloud dissolved away. Daylight returned, and the sun shone out, though luridly, as it does when an eclipse is coming.’ ” Excerpts from www.bible-history.com/resource/ff_vesu.htm, November 8, 2010.

“Drusilla, the partner of his guilt, afterward perished, with their only son, in the eruption of Vesuvius. …

“A ray of light from Heaven had been permitted to shine upon this wicked man, when Paul reasoned with him concerning righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come. That was his Heaven-sent opportunity to see and to forsake his sins. But he said to the Spirit of God, ‘Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.’ He had slighted his last offer of mercy. He was never to receive another call from God.” Sketches from the Life of Paul, 246.

Both Felix and Drusilla turned from the invitation and lost all.

Based on the story of Felix and Drusilla (Acts 24).

History – Herod the Great

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Herod’s Desert Fortification—The Herodium

King Herod the Great was one of the most powerful men and greatest builders of all time. Yet, he was so despised that at his death he ordered the death of many prominent Jews, so there would be weeping in Jerusalem. He was buried at his desert palace, the Herodium.

“Two hundred steps of purest white marble led up to it. Its top was crowned with circular towers; its courtyard contained splendid structures.” Jewish Wars, Flavius Josephus.

Herod the Great

For 40 years, Jewish history was dominated by Herod the Great. He was born about 73 B.C., the son of Antipater, who was an Idumean. The Idumeans were a tribe who had been forced by the Nabatean Arabs westward into southern Judea, where they had been forcibly converted to Judaism by the Hasmonean rulers of Palestine. The Idumeans were for this reason Jews of a recent and suspect background. At the same time they were shrewd and had no problem with making political deals with the Romans for their own advantage.

King Herod’s father, Antipater, governed them from about 47 B.C. He also served as an advisor to Hyrcanus, and gained the confidence of Pompey. When Julius Caesar was besieged in Alexandria in 48 B.C., it was Antipater who persuaded the Jews to aid Caesar. In gratitude Caesar gave the Jews important privileges.

Antipater’s son, Herod the Great, was an opportunist of the highest order. During the tumultuous years of the Roman civil wars he skillfully shifted his allegiance from Pompey to Caesar to Antony to Octavian (Augustus). Because he was such an able soldier the Romans valued his services. Rome needed a shrewd and capable agent in Palestine, and in Herod the Great they felt they had found such a man.

Herod Appointed King

Herod was appointed king of Judea by Marc Antony in 40 B.C., and was supported by Roman soldiers in his fight to gain control of Judea in 37.

Herod’s Pathological Character

Though successful in politics, Herod was bitterly unhappy in his private life. He married ten wives, including the beautiful Hasmonean princess, Mariamme, the granddaughter of both Hyrcan and Aristobulus. Though he loved her passionately, he suspected her of infidelity and had her executed along with her mother. Later, in 7 B.C., he had her two sons killed. Herod kept an uneasy peace by dealing ruthlessly with suspected rivals and troublemakers. He systematically killed off all living claimants to the Hasmonean kingship, including his young brother-in-law, the high priest Aristobulus. When he found that his favorite son, Antipater, had been plotting against him, he had him executed along with two of their brothers—just five days before his own death in 4 B.C.

The Roman Emperor Augustus said about Herod: “I would rather be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son.” It is easy to imagine such a man ordering the massacre of all male infants in Bethlehem for no better reason than a vague rumor that one had been born “King of the Jews.” This event vividly reflects the pathological character of the king. He murdered members of his own family, yet scrupulously observed Mosaic dietary laws and would eat no pork. …

The Death of Herod

Herod died in 4 B.C. at the age of 69. …

The historian, Josephus, describes the death of Herod at great length. I will summarize the event:

When Herod’s health began to fail him rapidly, he was moved to his winter capital in Jericho. From there he was carried by stretcher to the hot springs on the shores of the Dead Sea. The springs did no good; Herod returned home. Racked by despondency, Herod attempted suicide. Rumors of the attempt caused loud wailing throughout the palace. Herod’s son, imprisoned by his paranoid father, mistook the cries to mean his father was dead. Immediately, he tried to bribe his jailers, who reported the bribery attempt to Herod. The sick king ordered his son executed on the spot. Now Herod plunged deeper into depression. He was only days away from his own death—and he knew it. What pained him most was the knowledge that his death would be met with joy in Judea. To forestall this, he devised an incredible plan.

“Having assembled the most distinguished men from every village from one end of Judea to the other, he ordered them to be locked in the hippodrome at Jericho.” Jewish Wars, Flavius Josephus.

Herod then gave the order to execute them at the very moment he, himself, died. His sick mind reasoned that their death would dispel any joy in Judea over his own death. The order was never carried out. After Herod’s death, his body was carried in procession from Jericho to the Herodium outside Bethlehem for burial. Herod’s body was adorned in purple, a crown of gold rested on his head, and a scepter of gold was placed in his hand. The bier bearing his body was made of gold and studded with jewels that sparkled as it was carried along under the desert sun. Following the bier was Herod’s household and hundreds of slaves, swinging censers. Slowly, the procession inched its way up the mountainside to the Herodium, where it was laid to rest.

The Herodium

Herod the Great built this fortification in the desert in 37 B.C. Looking like a volcano, the Herodium is one of several fortress-palaces built by Herod the Great. It was artificially shaped, with everything placed inside its protected craterlike top.

Josephus wrote of this astounding complex, the Herodium:

“Herod built round towers all about the top, and filled the remaining space with costly palaces … he brought a mighty quantity of water from a great distance, and raised an ascent of two hundred steps of purest white marble that led up to it. Its top was crowned with circular towers; its courtyard contained splendid structures.” Jewish Wars, Flavius Josephus.

www.bible-history.com/resource/ff_herod.htm, November 16, 2010.

Customs of Bible Times – Wedding Feast

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Banquet Invitations

In some parts of the East a custom of double invitations to an entertainment has been observed. Some time before the feast is to be served, an invitation is sent forth; and then, when the appointed time draws near, a servant is sent again, this time to announce that everything is ready. There are several examples of this custom in the Bible. Ahasuerus and Haman were invited by Esther to a feast, and then, when it was ready, the king’s chamberlains went to get Haman (Esther 5:8; 6:14). Another example is in the parable of the wedding of the king’s son. “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding” (Matthew 22:2, 3). Again, the parable of the great supper has this double invitation in it: “A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready” (Luke 14:16, 17).

“Compelling” Guests to Attend

The following words of Christ’s parable need to be understood from an Oriental point of view: “And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:23). The usual brief invitation in America and the ready acceptance of it would be considered in the East entirely undignified. In the East the one invited must not at first accept but is expected rather to reject the invitation. He must be urged to accept. Although all the time he expects to accept, he must allow the one inviting him the privilege of “compelling him” to accept. It was thus that Lydia must have extended, and Paul and his companions must have finally accepted, hospitality. “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us” (Acts 16:15). When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to a meal, the Saviour did not at first accept the invitation, although He did go finally: “Now one of the Pharisees insisted that he take a meal with him” (Luke 7:36; A.T. Robertson, A Translation of Luke’s Gospel, George H. Doran Company, New York, 1923). All of this was in keeping with Oriental customs.

Posture While Eating at Feasts

The prophet Amos is the first sacred writer to refer to the custom of “stretching themselves upon their couches” when eating (Amos 6:4). By the time of Jesus, the Roman custom of reclining on couches at supper had been adopted in some Jewish circles. The Roman table and couches combined was called a triclinium. There were three couches which were located on the three sides of a square, the fourth side being left open, so that a servant could get on the inside to assist in serving the meal. The guest’s position was to recline with the body’s upper part resting on the left arm, the head raised, a cushion at the back, and the lower part of the body stretched out. The head of the second guest was opposite the breast of the first guest, so that if he wanted to speak to him in secret he would lean upon his chest.

This custom at a banquet table throws light on several passages from the four gospels. The apostle John asked Jesus a question while in this position at supper (John 13:23–25). In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, when Jesus said that “the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22), He doubtless meant to imply that he was reclining at a heavenly table next to Abraham where he could lean upon his breast. This is clear in the light of Christ’s description of that heavenly feast: “Many shall come from the east and the west; and shall recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11, A.R.V. margin). Also, this position of reclining at table explains how the woman could come during a dinner and take her position behind at the feet of Jesus and wash them (Luke 7:38).

Why Exclusion from a Feast was Considered to be so Terrible

Ancient banquets were usually held at night in rooms, which were brilliantly lighted, and anybody who was excluded from the feast was said to be cast out of the lighted room into “the outer darkness” of the night. In the teachings of Jesus, such exclusion is likened unto the Day of Judgment. “The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12). “Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness” (Matthew 22:13). “And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30). This expression “outer darkness” takes on a new meaning, when it is realized what a dread the middle-Easterner has for the darkness of the night. In the East a lamp is usually kept burning all night. To sleep in the dark as the Westerner usually does would be a terrible experience to the Easterner. Because of this fear of the darkness, the Saviour could have chosen no more appropriate words than “outer darkness” to represent the future punishment of the unrighteous.

Places of Honor at the Table

When the Pharisees were invited to a banquet, they were very covetous of having the highest places of distinction at the table. Jesus condemned them for this proud spirit. He said concerning them: “They … love the chief place at feasts” (Matthew 23:6, ARV). When Jesus was guest at a meal in a Pharisee’s house, He told a parable, when He noticed how they sought the chief places at the table. Here is the parable as given by A. T. Robertson (Luke 14:8–10).

“When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not recline in the post of honor, lest one more honored than you be invited by him, and lest the man who invited you both come and say to you, ‘Make room for this man;’ and then you will begin with shame to take and keep the last place. But, when you are invited, go and recline in the last place, so that, when the man who has invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, come up much higher.’ Then you will have honor in the presence of all your fellow guests.”

In many native homes, one room has a higher floor, and in this room the guests of honor are assigned places, and those of less honor on the lower floor or level. A place of special honor would be on the right of the host, and the next highest place on his left. James and John asked for such positions in Christ’s kingdom (Mark 10:35–37). But Jesus advised guests to take the last place. Where was this place located? It was on the lower level and nearest the door. The guest who would take this humble place might be invited by the master of the house to take a place on a higher plane and farther from the door.

Excerpts from Manners and Customs of Bible Lands, 61–65, by Fred H. Wight (The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1953).

Customs of Bible Times – The Sacred Duty of Hospitality

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Bowing

When a guest is received into an Eastern home, bowing between the guests and host is quite apt to take place. In Western lands such bowing would be of the head only, but in the East there is a more expressive custom of saluting with the head erect and the body a little inclined forward, by raising the hand to the heart, mouth, and forehead. The symbolic meaning of this action is to say something like this: “My heart, my voice, my brain are all at your service.” James Neil, Pictured Palestine, London: J. Nisbet, 1904, pp. 64, 65.

But those who are used to this custom on many occasions enter into a more complete bow. They do not wait to do this only for royalty, but when they want to express thanks for a favor, or supplicate for a favor, and at many other times of meeting they often fall on their knees, and then incline the body touching the ground with their head, and kissing the lower part of the other person’s clothing, or his feet, or even the dust at his feet. To those not acquainted with such manners, it would seem that one person was worshiping the other like he would worship God; but ordinarily, worship of this sort is not involved in the action. Ibid., pp, 65–67.

Cornelius is said to have worshiped Peter: “And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet, and worshiped him” (Acts 10:25). Of course, Peter rejected this lest it might involve divine worship. …

Greeting

Upon entering an Arab house or a Bedouin tent, the greetings used are something like this: The host will say:

“Salam alakum,” which means, “Peace be on you.” The guest will respond with the words: “Wa alakum es-salam,” meaning, “And on you peace.” John D. Whiting, “Bedouin Life in Bible Lands,” The National Geographic Magazine, January 1937, 72.

Knowing that these Arabic customs date back for centuries, how significant then are the instructions of Jesus to His disciples, who were to be entertained in certain homes: “And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house, and if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again” (Luke 10:5, 6).

Kissing

Guests in Holy Land homes expect to be kissed as they enter. When entertained by a Pharisee, Jesus commented on His reception by saying to the host, “Thou gavest me no kiss” (Luke 7:45). …

Here men shake hands when they meet and greet, but in Palestine, instead of doing this, they place their right hand on their friend’s left shoulder and kiss his right cheek, and then reversing the action, place their left hand on his right shoulder, and kiss his left cheek. In this country [the United States] men never kiss each other’s faces; there it may be constantly seen. But how the practice lights up the numerous allusions in Scripture which are naturally lost to a Westerner! Once grasp the fact that their kiss answers to our hearty handshake between friends and social equals, and how much—how very much—becomes plain that was before obscured . … Neil, op. cit., 68.

Guest Given a Drink of Water

One of the first things done for a guest who has been received is to offer him a drink of water. The doing of this is recognizing him as being worthy of peaceful reception. … When Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, sought a welcome, he did so by requesting of the maiden who came to the well to draw water (Genesis 24:17, 18), “Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher.” And when she made answer, “Drink, my lord,” it was an indication that he was welcome to be a guest at the nearby home. With this significance attached to a drink of water, the promise of Jesus takes on new meaning (Mark 9:41), “Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.” H. Clay Trumball, Studies in Oriental Social Life, 106, 108, 112.

The Guest Made Lord of the House

An Eastern proverb runs thus: “The guest while in the house is its lord.” This is a true statement of the spirit of the hospitality of the East. One of the first greetings a Palestinian host will give his guest is to say, “Hadtha Beitak;” that is, “This is your house.” This saying is repeated many times. Thus, actually, the guest during his stay is master of the house. And whenever the guest asks a favor, in granting it the host will say, “You do me honor.” … Milton N. Lindberg, A Guest in a Palestinian Home, a pamphlet, 6, 7.

The host was considered to be a servant, and the guest was lord. Thus Lot spoke of himself and his guests: “Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house” (Genesis 19:2).

Privacy Not Expected by the Guest

An Eastern guest would think he was ill-treated if he were left alone at any time. He does not need privacy at night, because he sleeps with his clothes on. He is happy to have others sleep with“ him. If a sleeping place is assigned to him in an upper room, then some of the family sons sleep alongside of him that he might have their companionship. He would feel that he was being deserted if treated the way he would be if entertained in the West, just as a Westerner would feel oppressed by the constant attention of an Eastern host. George M. Mackie, Bible Manners and Customs, Cornell University Library, 1898, 93.

In the lands of the East, when a host accepts a man to be his guest he thereby agrees at whatever the cost to defend his guest from all possible enemies during the time of his entertainment.

Excerpts from Manners and Customs of Bible Land, by Fred H. Wight, Moody Press, Chicago, 1953, 69–79.

Our Past History – First Angel

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In Ellen G White’s book, Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 196, she says, “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.”

With this in mind, let us study a subject that is very broad and complex, namely, the Three Angels’ Messages. For some of you this study may only be a reminder with nothing new discerned, yet to be reminded of our sacred history is a matter that should never be dreaded. “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.” Because these messages are very broad, in this study we will reflect only upon the first angel.

In Revelation 14:6, the Bible says, “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” I want to briefly emphasize the phrase another angel.

Throughout the book of Revelation the apostle John sees angels. Angels are directing traffic, blowing trumpets, pouring out plagues, and proclaiming messages. However, the angel in Revelation 14:6 is distinct from every angel preceding it. What is so unique about this angel? First of all, the word angel refers to a messenger. It can refer to a heavenly messenger such as in Matthew 13:41. Or it can refer to a human messenger such as in Matthew 11:10.

The Greek word for messenger is the same as angel. In Revelation 14:6, this angel has the everlasting gospel to preach, and since the preaching of the gospel is mentioned, the angel must therefore represent human messengers. In Mark 16:15, Jesus says, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Notice also Ephesians 3:10: “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” The responsibility of preaching the gospel has been given to the church. Therefore, the angel John sees in Revelation 14:6 refers to a movement in which the church would proclaim a message. This is what makes this angel unique. It is the first angel in Revelation that has a message to preach to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. And what is the message of the first angel?

Revelation 14:7 says, “Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”

The message of the first angel is a message of the judgment hour. This message began to be proclaimed by William Miller in the early 1830s. The movement became known as the Millerite movement and later on as the Advent movement. The scripture that laid the foundation for this movement was Daniel 8:14, which says, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”

Here we have a prophecy that the sanctuary is to be cleansed at the end of 2,300 days. Because this is a symbolic prophecy, the time is also symbolic. The Bible tells us that a symbolic day represents a year. “After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.” Numbers 14:34. “And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.” Ezekiel 4:6.

Notice how in both of these passages a prophetic proclamation is being given, and in both cases, each day corresponded to a year. So, the 2,300 days of Daniel 8:14 represents 2,300 years, and at the end of that time the sanctuary was to be cleansed.

The mystery that first perplexed William Miller was concerning the time in which the 2,300 years began. Once this was attained, he could know when the end of the time would be. The answer was unfolded when the meaning of Daniel 9:24 was discovered. It says, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city … .” I want to emphasize the word determined. The root meaning of this word is to cut or to divide. Therefore, the literal translation of Daniel 9:24 is, “Seventy weeks are cut from thy people … .” The question that naturally arose was: What was the 70 weeks cut off from? Well, the only other time given that did not include a beginning date was the time prophecy of Daniel 8:14, the 2,300 days. The angel Gabriel informed Daniel of the 2,300 days, but he never told him when it was to begin. Therefore, Gabriel returns to finish informing Daniel of this vision. In Daniel 9:23, the Bible says, “At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.”

Notice how Gabriel told Daniel to “consider the vision.” What vision was he talking about? Well, the last vision Daniel had was the vision that introduced the 2,300 day prophecy. In Daniel 8:16, Gabriel is commanded to make Daniel understand this vision. However, verse 27 informs us that Daniel did not understand it, because he fainted as it was being explained to him. So after several years, the angel returned to finish explaining the vision. Thus he picks up where he left off, namely, with the time of the prophecy. He tells Daniel that seventy weeks are cut from his people. The only time that the seventy weeks can be cut from is the 2,300 days. And in Daniel 9:25, Gabriel gives the starting point for this time. It says, “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.”

From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem is when the 2,300 literal years were to start. All William Miller needed to do now was find the actual year this commandment was given. In Ezra 6:14 the answer is given. It says, “And they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.” Notice this threefold commandment. The last king to finalize the commandment was Artaxerxes. Therefore, Miller concluded that the year that Artaxerxes gave the commandment was the official year to begin the countdown. In what year did Artaxerxes give his commandment?

In Ezra 7:7 we read, “And there went up some of the children of Israel, and of the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nethinims, unto Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king.” So, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the commandment was finalized, and history reveals that the seventh year of Artaxerxes was 457 B.C. With this date in mind, Miller and his associates eventually realized that the 2,300 literal years would end in the year A.D. 1844.

This was only a few years away from the time in which this discovery was made. Therefore, the Millerites proclaimed the message of a coming judgment in 1844. However, instead of proclaiming the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, the Millerites proclaimed the cleansing of the earth, which they thought was the sanctuary. Nevertheless, this message was in harmony with the judgment hour message proclaimed by the first angel of Revelation 14. Both constituted the early Advent movement of the 1830s and 1840s.

Now, this is the first angel that preached the everlasting gospel, but it is not the last. The message of judgment was to be followed by two other messages, and all were to be proclaimed together. In part two we will study the second angel’s message, and after that, the hope of the third angel. But for now, remember, “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.”

Demario Carter is currently working as a Bible worker for Steps to Life. He may be contacted by email at: bibleworker@stepstolife.org.